Your Glass Mansion
by Prince Jackaninny
Summary: "All we need is because, so come and party with us." A sort of origin fic for some headcanons about how Billy died and how he and Spencer met.
1. The End of the Night

**WARNINGS: This is about death and drug and alcohol abuse. There is also a fairly detailed description of vomiting (paragraphs 4-6, if you want to skip). **If you're uncomfortable with any of this, please do not read!

* * *

"_I'll take one 'cause I needed to feel it so much. I needed that thing we call fun, but now I'm ignored and I'll take some more, until something is happening."_

_Hurt "Overdose"_

* * *

Billy staggered out of the elevator into a room at the very top of his mansion. He'd really overdone it this time. He'd thrown a party to celebrate the release of a new single and had had far too much to drink. He hadn't meant to get particularly drunk, but his CD sales had been declining for the past year and one thing had led to another.

He'd spent most of the night doing things he'd regret later and taking a shot every time his sinking popularity creeped into his thoughts. Eventually the drinks' depressant effects took over and Billy's anxieties returned in full force. However this was a Hollywood party; there was no end of herbs, pills and powders that would cure any ill. He got some coke from a friend he'd known since the beginning of his career. Later he took a pill from a friend he… didn't really know at all, if he'd stopped to think about it. He washed it down with another drink, but it did nothing for the pounding headache that had been building for the past two hours.

A few minutes later and the headache had double in size. He didn't like to abandon his own party, but there was no way he could stay on his feet much longer. Clutching his head, he pushed his way through the crowd and into his elevator. He relaxed slightly as the elevator ascended and the noise from downstairs faded to a throb. The elevator stopped and left him where he was now, a room at the highest point of the mansion. He looked around, confused. This was one of his favourite rooms in the house, but he'd _intended_ to go to his bedroom. He decided it didn't really matter since there was a couch in here and that was good enough. He stumbled his way to the sofa and crumpled down onto it. No sooner had he lay down than a wave of nausea passed over him.

He sat back up too fast and fumbled dizzily in the direction of the washroom. He didn't get very far before a shudder ran up his spine. He pitched forward as he felt bile and stagnant alcohol bite at his throat. He fell to his hands and knees as he vomited on the carpet. He managed to gasp for breath once before another pang of nausea hit him in full force. He vomited again, now reduced to propping himself up on his elbows as choleric fluid tore through him and spilled onto the floor. Once it stopped, Billy gasped desperately for breath. His eyes stung from the fumes of alcohol and tears ran down his face. His entire body was shaking with sobs as he collapsed onto his side.

He looked around the room in a panic. He'd drunk to the point of throwing up before, but it had never been this bad. He was so cold and he realized now he couldn't feel his hands or feet. He couldn't even call for help. He didn't have the strength and even breathing was painful at this point.

_Oh please no_, he thought as sickness washed over him again. He had no strength to sit back up again and had to throw up lying on his side. He curled in on himself as his stomach emptied and he began to dry heave. His chest was burning now and he began to alternate between gagging and coughing. Just when he was sure his chest was about to burst, the emesis began to subside until he lay perfectly still. He vaguely realized that he wasn't even breathing anymore. Then everything went dark.

Billy knew what was happening. The heat in his chest, the soreness in his legs, all of the pain was gone. It was dark, but he was sure he hadn't closed his eyes. A strange feeling was soaking into him; he was starting to feel… insubstantial. Somehow, he already knew this was what dying felt like.

If he'd been able to move he would have begun to tremble. He could really feel his life slipping away, but he desperately didn't want to let it go. He'd never given much thought to what happens after you die, but he suddenly felt very sure that there was no heaven nor any kind of afterlife. He somehow felt as if he knew he was about to just stop existing, to just _end_. The concept made his thoughts swim frantically with fear.

He suddenly began to think of all the things he had done in his life and all the things he'd meant to do. He began to remember his first concert and all of his concerts since, more vividly than they had been in person. A new, more intense breed of terror began claw through him as he realized he would never experience the rush of a screaming mob of fans ever again. He couldn't take that; the fawning admiration made him feel more alive and euphoric than he would have otherwise imagined possible. He couldn't give up fame, not even in the face of death.

_No, I can't die_, he thought vehemently, _please, _please_ no_.

Just as his panic came to a head, his eyes shot open. For a long time he was absolutely still, too stunned to move. Eventually he looked around the room; he was standing in his loft. A grin spread across his face as a realization spread through his mind.

"I'm not dead!" He screeched with joy as he spun around, "Oh thank god!"

His happy shrieks continued and he began trilling about miracles and bucket lists, until he looked down and saw his own body curled up on the floor beneath him.


	2. This Silly Bag

A/N: I don't even know what I'm doing, but let's play 'spot the author's emotional projections' lel

**No real warnings for this, but it DOES talk about death a lot and if I have done my job right there will be feels. Lots and lots of bad, bad feels.**

Also, about his mother: the reason I have her behave that way is because parents who behave like that tend to produce narcissistic children (at least, that's what I learned somewhere).

* * *

_"This silly bag that I've been wearing, made of guts and cords and bones"_

- _The Nighty Nite "This Silly Bag"_

* * *

Billy stared down at the form in disbelief. For a while he only felt confused; he wasn't dead, yet his body was lying prone on the floor. He looked down at himself, the self that wasn't sprawled out in its own vomit. He could see right through his legs. He raised his hands; they too were partially transparent.

His mind raced with a hundred different thoughts all clamouring for attention at once. He couldn't understand what was happening or why he was looking down at his own body. _How can I be up here and down there all at once?_ He thought frantically, _Why am I see-through? Am I ghost or something?_

_Oh. Oh god._

Billy felt as though a ton of ice water had been dumped on him as the revelation hit. He was definitely dead, but he was still here. He looked back at his former body. It was one of the few times that he had cringed at his own image. His face was horribly pale and slick with perspiration. Blue veins were visible through the skin on his neck and hands. His hair was limp with sweat and he stunk of alcohol. Billy grimaced realizing this was the way some people would see him for the last time. This might be how they remembered him, sickly and pathetic.

A small bubble of ectoplasm welled up in his eye and rolled down his cheek. It continued down his neck and reabsorbed back into his body. More tears followed it and soon he was openly weeping.

"It's not fair!" He wailed, "It was a mistake! Hundreds of people are downstairs right now making the same mistake! So why me?! So why am I the one who dies?!"

Billy's outbursts continued and he spent the rest of the night in the loft weeping by his body. He was unnerved by the corpse, but at the same time he couldn't leave. This was probably the last time he'd be able to see his real face and not just pictures or semitransparent apparitions. It was strange to look at himself with such detachment. Was this really all he was? He looked at the body now and somehow could only see it as a pale bag of flesh and bones wrapped in expensive fabric. That was it. That was all he ever was, but he would give anything to go back to it.

Billy raised his head at the sound of birds singing outside and realized it was bright outside. It was very bright and it probably had been for quite a while. There was a slight clamour and he looked to see the elevator go back downstairs. A few minutes later it returned and short, stout woman in a plain, blue housekeeping dress stepped out pulling a cart behind her. _One of the maids_! Billy thought excitedly. He floated over to her eagerly waving his arms.

"Hey! Hey, call an ambulance!" He said, but she didn't respond, "Yo, didn't you hear me? I'm K.I.A. over here, get your phone out!"

Again she didn't reply and proceeded to walk right through him. _She… She can't see me… or hear me…_ Billy thought.

"Oh, Mr. Cobra," The maid said as she began cleaning, "Did you fall asleep on your floor again?"

Billy followed her as she went about her routine, dusting, spraying, and wiping everything in the room.

"I'm dead you know," Billy said cattily. He knew it wasn't her fault that she couldn't see him, but he still felt angry at her "There's a dead body like ten feet away from you."

Eventually the woman made her way to the other side of the room. She stopped in front of Billy with her hands on her hips, "I'm sorry, Mr. Cobra, but you'll have to get up if you want me to clean your… mess out of the carpet." She leaned down and shook him gently. He was very cold and her smile fell when she noticed the dark, purple discolorations on part of his face and bare stomach. She shook him more vigorously, "Mr. Cobra? Sir? Mr. Cobra?! Oh god… Oh my god…"

She jumped to her feet covering her mouth and stumbling backwards. She fumbled in her pockets and pulled out a cell phone and punched in the numbers with trembling hands. Billy watched with disdain as she spoke frantically to the operator.

He realized suddenly that she was the first to discover his body. After he left the party, no one else came to look for him. It had been his party and no one cared when he disappeared? His friends had seen how much he'd drank and they probably saw him slink through the crowd holding his head. No one worried what might have happened to him? None of them cared, so his corpse was discovered by "the help". He gritted his teeth in anger as the realizations hit him. Eventually his rage faded into despair. _None of them cared._

He sat heavily on the floor and phased through it. He looked down in shock and slowly floated back up out of the carpet. He hovered near the ground, as though he were sitting and watched as the maid paced back and forth anxiously before heading downstairs again, still on the phone with the emergency operator. He didn't even know this woman's name. Ectoplasm began to drip from his eyes again as he wondered what would have happened if there'd been no maid service. Maybe it would have been days before anyone found him.

He suddenly felt very used. His friends probably saw him as just another pretty face to leech fame from. They would probably use his death as a popularity stunt and tell the media _how much he'd meant to them_. He wrapped his arms around his knees and buried his face against his legs.

* * *

It wasn't long before paramedics poured into the room. Suddenly the atmosphere became very chaotic. Billy tried to see what they were doing, but everything was moving so fast. Before he knew it his body was on a stretcher, zipped up in a dark plastic bag. He followed the paramedics outside and watched himself be wheeled into an ambulance.

There were already a few vehicles outside, paparazzi waiting eagerly with their cameras. He wondered how they had found out so quickly. The maid followed outside afterwards and made a scornful noise, "Vultures." She said. Normally Billy loved to be surrounded by paparazzi, but this time he had to agree with her.

The ambulance drove off and Billy followed it to the hospital. The paramedics wheeled the stretcher to the morgue and Billy cringed. He knew this was the only place he could have expected, but it still came as a shock to him. This was really it. He was dead.

After some paperwork and formalities, his body was left alone with the other cadavers. Billy hung around with morbid curiosity. He wanted to know what was going to happen to his body. He looked around and tried looking at one of the other unfortunates in the room. It seemed to be a burn victim and he decided not to look under any of the other sheets.

* * *

After some time he heard some talking outside and the door to the morgue opened. Two men came in; one was wearing scrubs and the other a white coat. Behind them a thin woman with long black hair and too much mascara followed. Billy's face lit up and he swooped over to her.

"Mom!" He stopped in front of her, hovering low enough so that he had to look up at her. He smiled his most placating smile. She didn't respond and walked through him. _Oh right_, he realized. Tears rolled down his face as his mother cautiously approached the stretcher his body was lying on.

The man in the scrubs unzipped the bag, revealing Billy's pale face. She stared at it for a moment with an unreadable expression. "Yeah…" She said quietly. She stared at the cadaver some more before sighing and wrapping her arms around herself.

"It's okay, mom," Billy said, tears streaming down his face. He choked in a few breaths, "It'll be okay. _I'll_ be okay."

"I can't even cry," She said as she dropped her arms to her sides morosely. Billy's sobs slowed and he frowned as his mother turned towards the man in the white coat. "I've always been so emotional and now I can't even find a single tear…"

"It's alright," The man assured her, "It's not uncommon for people lose the ability to cry when they get overwhelmed with emotions."

"He never had any self-control," She continued, "He was such a hassle to raise, especially after my husband left me…"

"Stop it," Billy said even though he knew she couldn't hear him. His voice got louder and louder as he talked, "You always do this! You turn everything into something about yourself! I'm dead and all you can do is turn it into another one of your personal tragedies! STOP IT!"

As he yelled the last word, the light bulb above him burst and small shards of glass fell to the floor. Everyone in the room jumped, but Billy didn't stay to see their reactions. He went back to his mansion and curled up on his bed, crying again.

He hauled up inside his room for weeks. He left once to attend his own funeral, but otherwise spent all his time eating peanut butter in bed. By the end of the third week he was actually beginning to feel alright. He still had his peanut butter and, maybe even more importantly, his home. _No one's gonna take that away from me_, he thought before he jumped at the sudden sound of voices downstairs. He sat up on his bed and listened intently. There were a few different voices, some of them even sounded like… _kids?_ Billy wondered, _What are they doing in my house_? He headed downstairs with irate curiosity.


End file.
